Don't Know Mind

About a month ago, I synchronously came upon an passage in a book I was reading regarding "don't know mind." The words resonated within and practicing this concept intrigued me, as I have been in a state of not knowing for some time. (I am certain that the state of confusion I had felt at times in recent months was not what that practice was all about :) "Being present" is helpful in challenging times, but the concept of "don't know" mind seemed to take mindfulness to another level.

If you don't understand, or if you have an answer but don't know how to respond, only keep a "don't know" mind. Don't hold the problem in your thinking mind. Keeping a "don't know" mind means cutting off all thinking. Cutting off all discursive thoughts takes us to the wellspring of our true nature, and brings us to the present Moment. What are you doing just now?

Your mind is like the sea. When the wind comes, there are very big waves. When the wind dies down, the waves become smaller and smaller, until finally the wind disappears altogether and the sea is like a clear mirror. Then mountains, trees and all things are reflected on the surface of the sea. There are many thought-waves in your mind. But if you continue to practice "don't know" mind, this thinking will become gradually smaller, until finally your mind will always be clear. When the mind becomes clear, it is like a mirror: red comes and the mirror is red; yellow comes and the mirror is yellow; a mountain comes and the mirror is a mountain. Your mind is the mountain; the mountain is your mind. They are not two. So it is very important not to be attached either to thinking or to not thinking. You mustn't be upset by anything that goes on in your mind. Only don't worry and keep don't know mind. So it all depends on how you are keeping your mind just now, at this very moment! This just-now mind continues and becomes your life, as one point continues and becomes a straight line. So I ask you: What are you? You don't know; there is only "I don't know." (Zen Master Seung Sahn)

Since then, I have tried very hard to put this philosophy into action, and I am here to tell you that I have a long way to go. I can be Present, and acknowledge and relax into a state of "not knowing." This does help for a short time, and I have tried to apply this to the situation with my husband.

To his credit, it appears that he has had no further contact with the other woman, but he does not want to work through what happened. No counseling or mediation. No further conversations about it. His solution is pretending it never was.

So I don't know how things will be, but there are some things that I do know: He is with me, but it is not because he loves me. I know this because there is little talk of emotions, or affection, or words of endearment. I believe now that she was not the first (only the first one I found out about), that there will be others (there may already be, and he might just be more careful), and that he will eventually leave, finding some way to blame me for it. So I must prepare myself emotionally for the inevitable. Most of all, I don't want "don't know" to turn into "don't care."

I wish things were very different. I wish that he openly felt more for me, that he wanted to convince me that she did not matter and I did. That he had gotten over her to the degree that he could speak about her openly and matter-of-factly. That he couldn't bear the thought of losing me. Isn't this how a husband and wife should be together? Evidently, this is just my one-sided fantasy of how things could be.

We are good friends in other areas of our life, and perhaps that is more important than love? We work well together, share many things in common, have intelligent conversations, help each other out, and I do believe he is a good person inside, even if he is a dishonest person. However, I am becoming less willing to settle for the very minimal emotional attention he provides, and the lies have done their damage.

Let me qualify...truly it is not the infidelity and lies that have damaged the relationship, for I could come to understand (and forgive) why he felt deception was necessary at the time. It is the unwillingness to acknowledge the lies or feel remorse for them. He will not talk about what the truth is or how he feels. He does not acknowledge how he would feel if I had done something similar. And on the flip side, he does not give me credit for the strength it has taken for me to accept what happened and try to move on. He feels that saying "I am sorry this happened" once is all the apology that is needed to get on with our life. And all of this simply confirms he has little investment in our future together.

So I guess seeking peace is evolving into actively creating peace within, but how will this all turn out? I just don't know...

Look at this face. I know the years are showing.
Look at this life. I still don't know where it's going.
I don't know much, but I know I love you,
And that may be all I need to know.

Look at these eyes--they never've seen what mattered.
Look at these dreams, so beaten and so battered.
I don't know much, but I know I love you,
And that may be all I need to know.

So many questions still left unanswered;
So much I've never broken through.
And when I feel you near me, sometimes I see so clearly
The only truth I've ever known is me and you.

Look at this man, so blessed with inspiration.
Look at this soul, still searching for salvation.
I don't know much, but I know I love you
And that may be all I need to know.

What Dreams May Come?

The Paths of You and Me,

That began as the One Path of Us,
Separate at the crossroads of our Future.
Now here I stand nonplussed;
Sadly, I hesitate, needing to make a choice:

Which road shall I tread?

On the Path With You, I dream that you are there,

With compassion, affection, honesty,

You see yourself clearly, and you see me where
You are, in the midst of our Happiness.

On the Path of Me, I can dream of you no more,
For you are elusive, cold, isolated,
Closeness and intimacy you deplore,
Hiding behind your defensive wall of deception.

I pray for the Path of Us,

But wonder if it ever was.

As I took those steps,
Walking in our shoes
Was I in a dream?
(Stupid is as stupid does)
Or was there solid footing inclined
Upwards?

Standing at the crossroads,
I will never know,
For all that is behind,
Far beyond the Horizon
Of our Long Ago.
Perplexed that it could not last,
Wondering what dreams may come,
What the Future may bring
I shudder with dread, and want to run.

Letter to My Spouse

I wish that it was such between us that I could say these things to you face to face, that you were in a place within your Self that you could listen and hear what I have been trying to communicate for so long. Alas, I am relegated to a space in a place outside Us to say what I must. For I must let go of the things you wish me to forget. The letting go is not so I can pretend they never happened (as you are trying to do), but to get on with my Life.

I will listen to your Message, perhaps at the cost of Us, but not at the expense of Me. For too long, I have loved you unconditionally, despite the unbalanced love, imagined slights, hurtfulness, lies and betrayal. For too long, I thought that you were so wounded Inside that you needed a stronger Love to surpass your own Inner Pain. I believed that you needed a patient understanding from someone who truly cared about you so you could get beyond the things that held you back from Being who you are.

All the while, you withdrew more and more, and accused me of leaving you alone, saying this is why you went to others. You rejected the myriad suggestions for us to be together, and stood by passively saying we did nothing. You provided no alternatives, and said I was the cause of your boredom. You entered into an intimate relationship with another woman (was she the only one?), making plans for your Future together, and you did things that you would never accept from me. You perceive attacks in reconstructive comments, and I am supposedly the one with a guilty conscience. When there was nothing worse you could cite, you fabricated an evil, malicious version of me to blame for what you were doing. Somehow I became the default reason while all your deceptions were justified, and why there is no need for you to apologize for the betrayal and violation of our Relationship.

Despite all this, what you have done in the last year is not good enough reason for me to be mistrustful and cautious and confused about you and us. I could forgive you for the deception and even the intimacies with her, but I am tired of apologizing for trite things you will never forgive, that you have inflated to huge proportions to balance your indiscretions. I am tired of persisting in a relationship without a sincere Love or tenderness. I must cease the futile attempts (and yes, I see now just how futile they have been) to prove something that you will never believe no matter what is presented before you or demonstrated.

The unbalance of our Relationship has tipped until the weight of it is too much to bear. Now I must balance who I am to love more: you or me. Haven't we learned that making false assumptions will destroy our relationship? Yet you hold on to and manipulate your false assumptions to justify your actions. You say things are different now, but you will not let go. You will not go to counseling, despite your suggesting it, because "we will speak of the Past." You say you do not want to be with her, but not why you want to be with me, so you feel that saying nothing should be interpreted as everything being fine. There is a simple answer, but you cannot speak it, because you do not feel it, and this I must learn to accept. I do love you still, but will not try to make you love me when you don't. We can try to look to the future, but only the Future will tell.

In My Beginning is My End

I said to my Soul, be still, and wait without hope,
For hope would be hope for the wrong thing.
Wait without love, for love would be love of the wrong thing.
There is yet faith, but the faith and the love
And the hope are all in the waiting.

Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought;

So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness, the dancing...

Trying to use words and every attempt

Is a wholly new start, and a different kind of failure

Because one has only learnt to get the better of words;
For the thing one no longer has to say,
Or the way in which one is no longer disposed to say it…

Home is where one starts from.
As we grow older the world becomes stranger,
the pattern more complicated of dead and living.
Not the intense moment isolated,
With no before and after,

But a lifetime burning in every moment;
And not the lifetime of one man only,

But of old stones that cannot be deciphered.

Love is most nearly itself when
Here and now cease to matter.

Old men ought to be explorers--

Here or there does not matter;

We must be still and still moving into another intensity

For a further union, a deeper communion

Through the dark cold and the empty desolation,

The wave cry, the wind cry, the vast waters

Of the petrel and the porpoise.

In my end is my beginning.

T. S. Eliot

The Darkness Around Us is Deep

A thick fog is enveloping us, choking the thin atmosphere that exists around us. No clarifying ray of Hope can be seen on the Horizon. There will be no more discussion of why or how we got Here. But the winding, deceiving ways to the place that is Now cannot leave my head. All I hear are the intimate conversations, pet names, and whispered affections that took place while I was sitting in the room. The secret codes, Twitterings, webcam visits, text messages, phone calls, and long conversations into the wee hours of the morning long after I had gone to sleep. "You have nothing to be concerned about. I'm just talking to my buddy."

Some of those conversations were about the uncaring bitch he lived with. I was just the person living in the same house who felt nothing and meant nothing, so could easily be discarded and disrespected. Divorce and their Future together was discussed before he spent His Time with her. All of this while I helped him get ready for "his vacation" and prepared to drive him to and from the airport. How sad that it was all turned back on me. He saw nothing Good in what I did. Ever? He saw nothing wrong in treating me as if I was the perpetrator of the Crimes to our relationship. "She means nothing to me. She is just a friend."

When he was with her, I did not exist. No calls, no birthday wishes, no emails...a curt assurance that he was safe such a long way from Home came only after several tries. Then, he could not say what was the Truth. Even now he cannot say the Truth, that he loved her, made her promises about their future, bought her things, cried with her in his arms. She thought she was pregnant at one point. There were shared experiences and deep intimacies that go beyond sex, that go beyond me. "But I never said I loved her."

He is with me now, but for what? I truly do not know. He does not touch me with tenderness, or look at me with a look of Love in his eyes. He does not see the Beauty in me, in the Us that was for a brief instant. How does respect simply appear from the place within where there was none to begin?

My husband, how would you feel if I did the same things to you? "Go for it." The Darkness around us is deep...

Staying Awake

If you don't know the kind of person I am,

And I don't know the kind of person you are,

A pattern that others made may prevail in the world,

And following the wrong god home, we may miss our star.

For there is many a small betrayal in the Mind,

A shrug that lets the fragile sequence break;

Sending with shouts, the horrible errors of childhood,

Storming out to play through the broken dike.

And as elephants parade holding each elephant's tail,

But if one wanders, the circus won't find the park,

I call it cruel and maybe the root of cruelty

To know what occurs, but not recognize the fact.

And so I appeal to a voice, to something shadowy,

A remote important region in all who talk;

Though we could fool each other, we should consider

Lest the parade of our mutual life get lost in the Dark.

For it is important that awake people be Awake,

Or a breaking line may discourage them back to sleep.

The signals we give - yes or no, or maybe -should be clear;

The Darkness around us is deep.

William Stafford

He Loves Me; He Loves Me Not

Listening to Indigo Daisies…it was my fate.
He loves me, he loves me not…
Did he ever love me? He forgot.
(Is it too late?)
Lyrics echo my thoughts, mirror my pain.
I want to run away from the unexplained.
Running never solves anything;
Running changes nothing.
Should I stay if he is still charmed by others’ arms?
I dream of laying in a field of peaceful tranquility,
In your arms, with no worries.
Don’t want to live without your touch.
But I can’t make you love me if you don’t.
You can't make your heart feel something it won’t.

Where is my baby? ‘Cause I miss him so much.